Faculty of Education - Theses
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ItemAims, men or money?. the establishment of secondary education for boys in South Australia and in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales - 1836 to 1860( 1980)Young children bring with them to school a certain amount of science knowledge gained from their everyday lives. What they "know", whether right or wrong, may be the result of interactions with family, television, computer programs, books, peers or visits to environmental locations, museums or science centres. In this study, children who have been at primary school for between two and three years are asked to describe their knowledge and their sources of information. The extent to which school factors are influencing their science knowledge is investigated. A survey was developed and protocols trialled before fifty-seven children aged eight and nine years at a provincial Victorian government primary school were surveyed to establish their home background and family interest in science, their own attitudes and feelings toward science and the efficacy of their science experiences at school. Interviews were carried out with nine students, selected to represent a broad range of attitudes to science, in order to gain more detailed information about their specific understandings of a number of topics within the primary school science curriculum and the sources of their information. The students' responses revealed that where they were knowledgeable about a subject they could indeed say from where they obtained their knowledge. Books were the most commonly cited source of information, followed by school, personal home experiences and family. Computers and the internet had little influence. Students who appeared to have "better" understandings quoted multiple sources of information. Positive correlations were found between enjoyment of school lessons and remembering science information, liking to watch science television or videos and remembering science information, and liking to read science books and remembering science information. Mothers were also linked to the use of science books at home, and the watching of nature TV shows at home. There are several implications for the teaching of science at early years level. Teachers need to be aware of powerful influences, from both within and outside of the classroom, which may impact on children, and which may be enlisted to help make learning more meaningful. The research indicates the importance of home background, parental interest and access to books, and notes the under utilisation of computers and lack of visits to museums and interactive science centres.
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ItemValues and the teaching of history to junior secondary school students( 2006)Entitled 'Values and the teaching of history to junior secondary school students' this thesis aims to explore the value of history as a subject for study by junior secondary school students and the role of values in the teaching of history. A focus on the types of knowledge that teachers bring to their professional practice forms part of the groundwork for the study. Professional knowledge is considered as pedagogical knowledge and content knowledge (Darling-Hammond, 1999; Shulman, 1986, 1987). These branches of a teacher's knowledge are discussed in relation to the teaching of history. History is broadly identified as a field of knowledge (Carr, 1961; Hexter, 1971; Leinhardt, 1994; Marwick, 1983), a discipline for study (Ang, 2001; Collingwood, 1946; Leinhardt, 1994; Levstik, 2000; Marwick, 1983; Rogers, 1984; Skilbeck, 1979) and a subject within the school curriculum (Board of Studies, 2000; Foshay, 2000; Macintrye, 1997; Mays, 1974; Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA), 2004, 2005). The value of teaching history to junior secondary school students is broadly considered in terms of the knowledge and understanding that can be developed through the study of history as a school subject. The embedded nature of values within teaching is acknowledged and distinctions drawn between social/community values, general educational values taught through history and more specific values associated with the study of history. The research is situated within the qualitative paradigm (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, 2005; Flick, 2002; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and involved a case study (Bassey, 1999; Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Merriam, 1988; Stake, 1995, 2000, 2005; Stenhouse, 1985; Yin, 2003a, 2003b) conducted at the junior secondary level that included the participation of the researcher, three other history teachers and students from Year 7 and Year 8 history classes. The methods used to collect data included an initial session with the teacher-participants and, at the conclusion of the study, a debriefing focus group with the teacher-participants, lesson observation and post lesson small-scale student discussions. The data gathered from this investigation is presented as a number of narratives (Bage, 1999; Bruner, 1986; Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 1990; Freebody, 2003; Mishler, 1986; Stake, 2000). The researcher contributes to these narratives as a teacher of history. The study affirms the value of teaching history to junior secondary students, recognizing an association with broad educational values (Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), 2005; Gilbert & Hoepper, 1996, 2004) and subject specific values, such as, sharing knowledge about the past (Fitzgerald, 1977). Values that are imparted through the study of history are categorized as general and specific and are closely linked to skills. The study is premised on the beliefs that thinking about practice (the past and the present) may enlighten future history teaching and learning (Schtin, 1996) and that 'mindfulness' (Leinhardt, 1994) is an essential characteristic of history teaching that engages both the teacher and student in the learning process.
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ItemSecondary education in the Australian social order, 1788-1898: a study in the evolution of the theory and the curriculum of secondary education, and the methods of teaching, in the changing Australian social order( 1958)In spite of all the hard words said about educational histories there should be no need to justify the historical study of education. The school, like the Church or the Theatre, is a social institution: if we may write the history of one, we may write the history of the others. As to the peculiar value of the enterprise, there will be differences of opinion; the distinctive values of the study of history are again in question. Suffice to say that it is the writer's suspicion that the debate on the content and method of secondary education, which has been conducted with considerable vigour in Australia in the past twenty years or so, would have been more fruitful if, to the various capacities brought to it, there had been added the capacity to see the problems of secondary education in the perspective of their development. It is surely not unimportant that the architects of educational policy should he enabled to see their problem in depth.